The Surface of the City: Feeling the City through Art and the Moving Image

Description

**Please note that this event will run till 3.30pm.**

Tati’s Playtime
features individuals navigating the glass and steel buildings of a modern
suburbia punctuated by the occasional views of the old city of Paris. This
fictional urban landscape defined by the old and new is a parallel to the
diversity of buildings that define Singapore’s own cityscape.

The Surface of the City is a panel that celebrates
the complicated task of capturing the evolution of the city through the unique
experiences that art installations and moving images offer. Through the
practice of artist-architects Atelier YokYok, Singapore films that represent the transformation of the city's landscape and studioMilou's architectural practice, The Surface of the City casts a critical eye on how we
represent and respond to the changing urban environment we inhabit.

Speakers bios:

Jean François Milou, the founder of studioMilou architecture, is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts of Paris. He has been a member of the French Order of Architects since 1979 and of the Singapore Board of Architects since 2008. Throughout his career, Jean François Milou’s signature sensibility to contexts has consistently privileged simple, legible but innovative design using appropriate materials and respecting the fabric of existing buildings within their architectural, urban, natural and cultural settings. This clear and disciplined, yet highly sensitive approach to his architectural work has allowed Jean François Milou to direct the design and the realisation of major projects both in France and abroad. In 2008, studioMilou architecture, led by Jean François Milou, won the competition to convert the former Supreme Court and former City Hall, two of Singapore’s most important National Monuments, into the National Gallery Singapore. The Gallery opened to the public in 2015.

Kenneth Tay is a writer and editor based in Singapore. His research and projects deal primarily with media histories and contemporary media practices. Previously he worked as Assistant Curator at the National University of Singapore Museum (NUS Museum) where he developed CONCRETE ISLAND - an ongoing project that examines the city of Singapore as logistical media. He is also the co-editor of the publication Left-Right (2016). He has published writings on the works of Heman Chong, Gwon Osang, SHIMURAbros, Geraldine Kang, and U5.

Based in Paris, Atelier YokYok is a design studio comprising three architects – Steven Fuhrman, Samson Lacoste and Luc Pinsard; architect-engineer Pauline Lazareff and literature professor Laure Qaremy. Working between architecture, urban design and contemporary art fields, Atelier YokYok has created large installations including Les Voȗtes Filantes (The Shooting Vaults, 2015), a winning project at the Cahors June Garden Festival,and The Treedom (2015), a top winner at Budapest's Sziget Festival's "Art of Freedom" competition. For more information, visit www.atelieryokyok.com.